Not Coming to a Theater Near You

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Flight of the Red Balloon / Le Voyage du ballon rouge / The Red Balloon / France / 2007

Had the opening scene—of the titular red balloon following Simon through the streets of Paris—been the entire film, all 117 minutes, I probably would have left the theatre a little teary-eyed. The magic in film that evokes the innocence and wonderment of childhood is very rare today—perhaps the rarest of cinematic species. Studios try to replicate that feeling—mass-produce it with characters they think we’ll love—but never succeed, because it never feels like anything other than desperation. For money, for notoriety, for awards, for the number-one spot on the Box Office Top 10. I clearly remember watching The Wizard of Oz as a child and being enamored by every aspect, a feeling I later felt when I watched other films like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Disney’s The Sword in the Stone. The Flight of the Red Balloon, while not perfect—and after those opening seven or eight minutes, nothing director Hou Hsiao-hsien could do would ever be—revived, at least for a while, those feelings of astonishment I very rarely feel for movies today. (Feelings, I should note, I had felt only days before, when Suzie Templeton’s Peter and the Wolf was broadcast on PBS.)

I realize my thoughts on Hou’s film are bumbling and overly sentimental, and I’ve spent the last month trying to write something better—more broad, more analytical. But I couldn’t, probably because my friends and I watched this film in a theatre that is slowly but visibly showing its age: Chipped walls, scuffed and soiled floors, broken chairs, a stage curtain held together by duct tape. Never a more apt metaphor for the sad state of magical films.

by Adam Balz | Source: 35MM Theatrical Print
06 May 2008 12:37 PM | Comments (1)

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Raw Force / Kung-Fu Cannibals / USA / 1982

An encyclopedia of exploitation clichés that manages to remain coherent enough to be one of the most insanely entertaining films I’ve ever seen. The Burbank Karate Club takes a booze-cruise to Warrior’s Island, a place where the dead martial artists allegedly rise from their graves to do the bidding of the island’s cannibalistic monks. Attempting to stop their arrival is Hitler look-alike Thomas Speer, who is afraid that his nude-girls-for-jade exchange program with the monks will be upset if outsiders are allowed on the island.

Raw Force has a frenetic pace, hitting its exploitive marks with unbelievable frequency. There are no lulls in the steady stream of kung-fu, nudity, and zombies. Fans of cine-excess should find a copy as soon as possible. Look for Camille Keaton in a rare post-I Spit on Your Grave role as a drunk girl in a bathroom.

by David Carter | Source: Fortune 5 DVD
04 May 2008 5:23 PM | Comments (1)

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Savage Man, Savage Beast / Ultime grida dalla savana / Italy / 1975

Savage Man, Savage Beast could alternately be viewed as the zenith and nadir of the Mondo cycle. Climati was Jacopetti & Prosperi’s cinematographer and the photography and use of montage on display here perhaps eclipses that of their works. A greater emphasis is given to placing the events of the film within a context, and the film more wholly espouses a critique of “modern” society than its predecessors. Though similar in style, Savage Man, Savage Beast has little in common with the lighthearted travelogue of curiosities that typified Mondo Cane I & II. The film’s sole concern is death; animal deaths primarily, but human death is used to extend the metaphor on occasion. It is for this reason that SMSB’s influence is possibly even more important Mondo Cane’s. This film is the bridge between Mondo and shockumentary—Faces of Death and the like that replaced Mondo in the late-seventies. Post-hardcore pornography, death was the only taboo on which Mondo and exploitation held a monopoly and Savage Man, Savage Beast is the first step towards the macabre monomania of later entries.

Savage Man, Savage Beast’s influence stretches beyond the Mondo/shock genre. Two “authentic” sequences in the film are key influences on Cannibal Holocaust’s film-within-a-film technique. Each is depicted as separate from the main film itself, with intertitles informing the audience of their origins and authenticity. The mauling of a tourist by a lion is captured both by his own camera and those by of onlookers. The sequence is by all accounts false, yet the amateurish quality, the “factual” context given by the narrator, and the point-of-view footage all make it difficult to readily dismiss upon a first viewing and it is still believed to be real by some. It would reappear in several films, either reimagined with different animals (Faces of Death) or as the same footage (Traces of Death). The alleged victim Pit Dernitz even has his own IMDB.com listing. Less convincing—but more important to Deodato’s film—is a later segment showing the murder, scalping, and castration of indigenous people by mercenaries from the “civilized world.” This portion was visually and thematically incorporated whole-cloth into a host of Italian cannibal cinema as it used in this context to establish the savagery of the modern man against nature and his fellow man.

It should be noted that print of the film on the Fortune 5 DVD excises the castration scene, stopping as the Indio’s legs are spread apart by the mercenaries. Uncut, that scene reveals its falsity soon after and this truncated print actually makes the segment seem more real; allowing the viewer to imagine an outcome rather than sit through Climati & Morra’s ludicrously excessive conclusion.

by David Carter | Source: Fortune 5 DVD
04 May 2008 5:19 PM | Submit Comment

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Safari / USA / 2008

IFFB: This film could be called moving still-lifes, or non-human dance. Small animals (insects, amphibians, reptiles) are shot in plant-filled but artificially lit setups that allow the camera to pick up stunning color, texture, movement, and expressiveness. A lovely film that combines the best features of video art and nature films.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:24 PM | Submit Comment

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Doxology / USA / 2008

IFFB: Not so much a short film as a series of vignettes advertising the director’s talents as an animator, and he has many. The animation could be described as full-size stop-motion: instead of using clay, he uses human actors. There are one-man tennis games, dances with sedans, and Shiva’s morning hygiene. Give this guy a story and the results could be great.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:23 PM | Submit Comment

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I Love Sarah Jane / Australia / 2008

IFFB: This may seriously have been the best film I saw at the IFF Boston. Very simply, a preteen boy tries to chat up his crush in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. The zombies were terrifying, the kids were both touchingly and violently real, the situation was funny and scary and yet normal, and the emotion was palpable. Beautifully shot (35 mm… sigh…) and impeccably acted. I can’t wait for this guy to start making features.

by Katherine Follett | Source: 35 mm print
01 May 2008 4:20 PM | Submit Comment

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Spider / Australia / 2008

IFFB: When that guy bought the fake spider along with the flowers and the card I was totally like, “The spider’s going to scare his girlfriend and she’s going to get into an accident and die,” and then that was exactly what happened and I was all like “weak!” and then the EMT saw the fake spider and he totally jammed that huge fucking needle into the guy’s eye and IT TOTALLY FUCKING GOT ME, MAN!

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:18 PM | Submit Comment

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Reorder / Canada / 2008

IFFB: This short is beautifully acted and inventively shot; the images are striking and original. The weak point is the writing and the plot. The fiancé’s confession is predictable, the protagonist’s reaction is way out of proportion (even if striking), and the supposedly cathartic ending rang false, especially after what felt like a warm and genuine reconciliation. In indie shorts, they tack on crappy unhappy endings.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:16 PM | Submit Comment

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A Catalog of Anticipations / USA / 2008

IFFB: Another sequence of stills, these much more deliberately composed and carefully framed, with the result that this film—as opposed to The Drift— feels like a beautiful narrative photo essay rather than simply a slideshow. The sound design and understated acting make the events chilling once the dead objects in the stills suddenly begin to come to life through stop-motion animation.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:13 PM | Submit Comment

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Primitive Technology / USA / 2008

IFFB: This odd, quick-moving, and very funny short follows a group of steam-punkish inventors who recruit a new member by smashing his laptop and encouraging him to build things from junk. When he creates a telescope that can see into the future, a round of increasingly ridiculous petty jealousies takes over. The film is bouncy, witty, whimsical, and homemade in a low-budget, thrown-together way that perfectly complements its subject.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:12 PM | Submit Comment

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The Pull / USA / 2008

IFFB: A slight but well done meditation on a relationship with an agreed-upon expiration date. The director manages to use spilt-screen without feeling frenetic, and in fact makes it evocative. But in general, the settings and the situation feel mundane.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:10 PM | Submit Comment

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The Drift / U.S.A. / 2008

IFFB: Less a short film than a collection of still images with some minor animation and a voiceover. Some of the stills are composed, while others are stock footage. The monotony of the voiceover, the lack of movement, and the semi-abstract, hard-to-follow concept make this somewhat of a yawn.

by Katherine Follett | Source:
01 May 2008 4:08 PM | Submit Comment

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